


Back Here For Trouble Again

by Anonymous



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Darcy Lewis-centric, Gen, Humor, Minor Jane Foster/Thor, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Thanos isn't really a character in this so much as a looming presence, Time Travel, Walk-On Appearances from Other MCU Characters, not WandaVision compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:42:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29934288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Darcy Lewis did not intend to travel back in time.  But she's back, and she's the only one who knows what the next ten years have in store.The universe isn't gonna know what hit it.
Relationships: Darcy Lewis & Jane Foster, Jane Foster & Darcy Lewis & Loki & Thor
Comments: 3
Kudos: 30
Collections: Five Figure Fanwork Exchange 2020





	Back Here For Trouble Again

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rosestone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosestone/gifts).



> Rosestone, I really liked a lot of your likes and prompts, and they inspired me to write this treat. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Title comes from "Golden Hour" by Electric Swing Circus.
> 
> I played a little bit with how the infinity stones work in this fic, as it's not particularly consistent in canon.
> 
> A few lines have been borrowed directly from Infinity War and Endgame.
> 
> Thank you to w and v for cheerleading this project; I couldn't have done this without you! <3

Darcy’s alarm blared incessantly. She groaned, reached for it, and promptly fell onto the floor.

Darcy looked around in confusion. Even without her glasses, she could tell: this wasn’t her studio back in California, the one she’d been renting since— (don’t think about it).

This was Jane’s mom’s flat in London. Darcy remembered it vividly: she’d spent a year living here with Jane in 2013, keeping Jane afloat and helping her nurse a broken heart. She’d had a love-hate relationship with this exact pull-out couch, and she’d fallen off of it, hopelessly tangled in an old afghan, on more than one occasion. The walls had been haphazardly covered in printed-out photos of astronomical phenomena, in a pattern that only made sense to Jane. 

Her alarm was still blaring. Darcy felt around for her phone and pressed the screen until it stopped. 

She held the phone enough to her face that she could see. The phone was an older model, with a few scratches on the screen. She turned it over, noting the polka dot case she hadn’t used in years.

When she turned it on, the lock screen background was a selfie of Darcy in front of the London Eye, her arm thrown over Jane’s shoulder. It was a good photo, but an old one. 

And when she checked the date, the most damning evidence was there: the date told her that it was early 2013.

“Jane, what did you _do_?” Darcy whispered. She grabbed her glasses from the side table and ran to the window. 

To be honest, she wasn’t quite sure what she was expecting. London hadn’t changed much in ten years. There were no signposts to tell her whether it was 2013 or 2023; it was raining, and there were cars on the road, and Darcy didn’t know enough about cars to know what year they were.

Darcy walked into the flat’s kitchen. There were bills scattered across the table, and a calendar up on the wall. The calendar read March 2013, with a saccharine picture of a meadow above it. She flipped through the bills, and they were all postmarked for early 2013.

Darcy closed her eyes, clutching tightly to the kitchen counter. She had seen a lot of weird shit. Not Avengers-level weird, except for on TV, but, you know. She’d met Thor. She’d been at ground zero of an alien invasion. A shady government agency had once confiscated her iPod. She’d spent years helping to develop wormhole technology— well, as much as “collecting the data into spreadsheets” could be called helping.

(And then there was the Snap, of course, but Darcy preferred not to think about that. Just… shove that down in the box of things to think about at half past never.)

But time travel? The last thing Darcy could remember was filming Jane as she tested the latest version of her replica Bifrost. Something must have gone wrong. 

“Darcy?” 

Darcy spun around. It was Jane, bleary-eyed and dressed in an oversized hoodie. 

“Morning,” Darcy said, smiling weakly. 

“Why are you up so early?” Jane asked.

Of course she would ask a question Darcy had no possible way of answering. 

“I don’t know,” Darcy hedged. “Just felt like getting an early start.” Jane nodded, and moved around her, pressing the start button on the coffeemaker. 

Darcy drummed her fingers on the table. Was there a good way to say, _‘hey boss, do you remember testing your shiny new Bifrost? Because I do and I think it’s a time travel device’_? Because sure, Darcy wasn’t known for her tact, but this seemed like the kind of thing she probably shouldn’t just blurt out.

Her behavior must have been off, though, because Jane gave her an odd look. “Darcy, are you okay?” she asked.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Darcy asked. Okay, so much for the ‘not blurting things out’ plan.

“Starting the coffee,” Jane said slowly. 

“No, like—” Darcy shook her head. “Before waking up. What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Darcy…” Jane’s voice was full of careful concern. She had a reputation of being absent-minded and callous, but Darcy had long ago learned that people just rarely drew her attention like science did. And when she did pay attention, she did so with a laser-sharp focus. 

“Jane.” Darcy tried to make herself sound as deadly serious as she could. It must have worked.

“We had some takeout from that curry place, we watched a movie, and I went to bed. You said you were staying up to call your parents.”

This all sounded familiar to Darcy. Not the details, but she’d had a dozen nights like that with Jane in London, and dozens more in Puente Antiguo and Oslo and Sacramento. They’d started as a way to pull Jane away from her work once in a while, and then to keep Jane from obsessing over Thor. And then, it was just a tradition.

Darcy caught Jane’s concerned gaze and smiled. "I'm fine," she said. "I think I just had some weird dreams last night."

* * *

Okay, so Darcy should probably have told Jane about the time travel stuff. That would have been a totally sane and rational reaction.

But when Darcy looked at Jane— Jane, who was still oddly fragile from Thor’s apparent abandonment of her, and her continuing professional troubles— she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Jane would want to know what the next few years held, and Darcy would have to tell her.

And Darcy couldn’t bring herself to do that. To tell Jane that she would be reunited with Thor, only to find that their relationship couldn’t survive long distance and different professional drives. That Jane would be put forward for a Nobel Prize for her work, only to have her entire career sidetracked a few short years later by Thanos. 

Thanos. How could she talk about Thanos? (She couldn’t.)

Darcy had gone for a walk, needing to escape from the tiny flat, and had only run into more reminders of where she was. She’d visited London a few months ago (ten years in the future) and this park had contained a memorial for victims of the Snap. There had been ongoing debates about what to do with it, now that the people it memorialized were alive again. 

But here and now, it was just a park. 

Darcy sat on a bench, scrolling mindlessly through her phone, refamiliarizing herself with her daily life of ten years ago. She paused on one particular contact— one she’d named “Ethan Hunt”. Even now, the reference still made her smile, although that might have just been her own particular sense of humor.

This was the number SHIELD had given her a few years ago, in Puente Antiguo. ‘In case of emergencies,’ the agent had said. 

Darcy had never called the number. She’d never once had an emergency severe enough that she wanted to get a sketchy secret agency involved— and then the Black Widow had released all those SHIELD files on the internet, and the whole agency had dissolved. 

She stared at SHIELD’s number on her phone until the screen went dark. On the one hand, this was exactly the kind of thing that SHIELD was supposed to deal with. 

On the other hand, Hydra had apparently infiltrated SHIELD all the way back when the agency was founded, and no one would know about it until next year. And while Darcy was _sort of_ okay with giving information about the future to SHIELD, she was not up for handing that kind of power over to Hydra. Like every other poli-sci nerd, she’d had a brief obsession with the SHIELD file dump, and she’d watched the clips that came out of the Black Widow’s congressional hearing. 

She knew what they were capable of. What kind of horrors they had been behind in the second half of the twentieth century.

She put her phone back in her pocket. There was no way she could go to SHIELD with this— not when she couldn’t possibly tell the difference between a Hydra agent and a SHIELD agent.

* * *

Darcy tried to put it out of her mind. Live in the here-and-now. Coax Jane into doing some science. But every time she’d turn around, it would hit her again. Tony Stark gave a press conference, and Darcy could only remember the endless memorials. An article covered disaster relief on the east coast of Africa, and Darcy briefly wondered why there was no mention of Wakanda. Social media was filled with endless, breathless coverage of the Avengers, and only the original members— except Thor— appeared.

But Darcy’s breaking point wasn’t any of those things. It was when Jane ordered butter chicken for both of them, and Darcy took a bite, and suddenly it was like she wasn’t in London anymore.

It was like she and Jane were back in Sacramento, just getting ready to break out the wine. And then they weren’t anywhere anymore. They didn’t exist. 

And then they did, but five years had passed, and they were just supposed to pick up and keep going like nothing had happened, and it was _fine_ because the bad guy was gone now.

Darcy choked, and found that she couldn’t eat the butter chicken after all. 

“I’m fine,” she told Jane. She’d been saying that a lot lately. “Just a stomach bug, I think.”

When Jane had gone to bed, Darcy swiped a beer from the fridge, climbed out onto the rickety fire escape, and cried. And then she began to create a plan. 

Okay, the _barest outlines_ of a plan. 

On her phone, Darcy began jotting down the major events of the next (past?) few years. There were a lot fewer details than Darcy would have liked. Apparently, sometime in the next few years, Captain America would fight Hydra, the Avengers would fight a killer robot, the Avengers would have the most dramatic breakup since the Beatles, and then Thanos would show up.

Darcy stared at her paltry attempts at a timeline, and typed _‘2017 - Wakanda turns out to be super high-tech’_. Then she took a long drink of her beer. 

She felt incredibly small. Just one person, on one planet, in a universe that was bigger and stranger than she would have ever imagined. But right now, she was the only person on the planet who knew what it felt like to just— stop existing. 

Maybe no one else would ever have to know what that felt like.

Darcy was the only person who knew what was coming, no matter how few details she knew.

Or was she? A memory came back to her: she and Jane were deep into a bottle of wine, and Jane had finally begun to talk about her reunion with Thor. 

“He said Asgard is gone,” Jane had said, pouring herself some more wine. 

“The whole planet?” Darcy had asked.

“Realm, I think,” Jane had corrected absently. “But yes. The refugees were on their way to Earth when— when Thanos came.” She’d stared into her glass of wine. “He said Loki tried to fight Thanos, and died.”

Darcy had snorted. “Sorry, but I’m not exactly shedding any tears over _Loki_.”

Jane had frowned, furrowing her brow. Darcy had fought the urge to reach over and smooth it out. 

“No,” she’d said. “Thor said something— he said Thanos was the one behind the Chitauri. Loki had met him.” She’d been uncomfortable with the topic, as everyone was. No one Darcy knew liked to even _think_ about Thanos.

The conversation had moved on from there, to more general talk about exes, but it had stuck with Darcy. Now, she groaned.

If she wanted more information about what Thanos was up to, there was one person she could ask— and he was currently imprisoned on Asgard.

* * *

Okay, so _now_ Darcy had a plan. Well, she had a plan to make a plan. Details.

The important thing was, she needed to talk to Loki. To talk to Loki, she needed to get to Asgard. To get to Asgard, she needed Thor.

Luckily for her, she knew exactly when and where Thor was going to be showing up. Until then, Darcy just had to wait.

That was harder that it sounded. Work was almost at a standstill— Jane hadn’t been working much lately, and without her raw data, Darcy had very little to do. After all, her main job— at least on the science side of things— was to collect and compile Jane’s data into a readable format. There was only so many times that Darcy could rearrange the same data sets into new spreadsheets and databases.

Instead, she focused most of her attention on Jane, who was still nursing a broken heart. The first time around, Darcy had thrown herself into distracting Jane: dragging her out sightseeing when the science clearly wasn’t going anywhere, convincing Jane to watch ridiculous movies with her (Jane secretly liked blockbusters, though she always pointed out the scientific inaccuracies), and pointing out hot guys in hopes that one of them would catch Jane’s attention. Darcy threw herself into the same sort of activities again— except for attempting to get Jane to date again. That part would resolve itself. Probably.

* * *

Darcy checked her phone again. No messages, of course; in 2013, she’d fallen out of touch with most of her old friends, except for the occasional Facebook message. 

Jane had been gone for almost five hours. 

Five hours in a creepy, abandoned building where the laws of physics didn’t work quite right. Even knowing what was going to happen next, Darcy was still freaked out.

Anyone would be, knowing that their closest friend was about to get all freaky with an infinity stone.

Meanwhile, it had begun raining outside. 

“Anytime, now,” Darcy muttered. She wasn’t sure if she was talking to Jane or Thor. 

A figure emerged from the darkness. For just a moment, she appeared to glow red. Then, she was back to looking just like normal, everyday Jane. She was already talking about a stable gravitational anomaly, but Darcy didn’t care about any of that. 

“Janie!” Darcy exclaimed. She wanted to run forward and hug Jane, but she remembered all too well how volatile the aether had been last time. “You were gone for five hours!”

“Really?” Jane sounded surprised. Dazed. Even so, Darcy could tell that she was already working through the implications— that the missing time meant something different to her.

She just hoped that Jane didn’t ask why she hadn’t called the cops. Sure, Darcy could come up with a good excuse— neither of them wanted SHIELD breathing down their necks, after all— but the truth was that she didn’t see the point in overcomplicating things. Not when she knew that Jane would be fine.

Before Darcy could speak again, she was interrupted by a crack of thunder. She and Jane both saw Thor at the same time, standing in a circle of strange Asgardian symbols. 

Jane outpaced Darcy as they raced toward Thor. She slapped him, and said something that Darcy couldn’t quite hear over the rain. And then they were kissing and— yeah. That was another one of those things that Darcy was just going to not think about. 

Jane was happy. It was good that Jane was happy. _Focus_ , Darcy. Maybe this time it would actually work out for the lovebirds.

She gave them an appropriate amount of time for reunion PDA, and then she interrupted. “Thor! Good to see you!”

“Lady Darcy!” Thor grinned at her, and _oh_. He looked so _happy_. Darcy was gonna feel like shit if she ruined that.

“It’s good to see you,” he continued. 

Darcy searched for something to say. It wasn’t like she and Thor had ever had many one-on-one conversations. “So how’s space?”

Thor laughed, and oh. He looked so happy, so carefree, even though he was still obviously worried about Jane. “Space is good.” 

A car alarm started going off a few streets over. Darcy wouldn’t have paid it any attention, except that Jane was startled, and a shockwave of red energy went flying from her, throwing Jane, Thor, and Darcy all back. 

Jane looked at her own hands like they were foreign to her. But Thor simply stepped forward and scooped her into his arms.

“I need to take you to Asgard,” Thor said to Jane.

Darcy grabbed onto his arm. “I’m coming, too.”

“Midgardians can’t—” Thor began.

“ _I’m coming_ ,” Darcy said, before he could finish that sentence with something stupid. There was no way in hell she was getting left behind. “I’m sticking with Jane.”

Thor hesitated for just long enough that Darcy thought that she might get left behind. But he finally nodded his head. “Hold on tight.”

Darcy had never been to space before. She’d seen countless photos of stars and planets and unexplained phenomena that had been taken from Earth, but she’d never imagined leaving the planet.

Experiences like that were for astronauts and superheroes. She was a sidekick, at best.

But this was— it was unimaginably beautiful. Light coursed past them like a physical object, and the planets and stars on either side seemed close enough to touch— if Darcy dared to reach out past the safety of the Bifrost.

She, Jane, and Thor were deposited in a golden observatory, guarded by a huge, dark-skinned dude with golden eyes and gold armor. (He had a real theme going.)

The observatory— or whatever it was— was at the very end of a rainbow bridge. The bridge stretched over an endless, star-filled void, toward a shining city.

Asgard was more beautiful than Darcy had imagined. The architecture was archaic, in the way that Thor’s armor was— beautifully and intricately made. But it was clearly technologically advanced: small ships darted across the shining skyline, and lights shone from every building.

“It’s beautiful,” Darcy said.

Thor smiled. “I’m glad you think so.”

* * *

Darcy slipped into the— dungeons? That seemed the best word for it, although she wasn’t sure it was the word Thor would use. Prison, maybe.

Most of the cells were unoccupied, but it was Loki who drew Darcy’s attention. He was at the cell at the very end, lounging as though he didn’t have a care in the world. Darcy stuck her hands in her pockets, hoping that he couldn’t see her shake.

As she approached his cell, he gave up all pretense of ignoring her. “I see Thor adopted a new pet.”

Darcy had never been trained in interrogation. She didn’t know how to question someone, or how to read their body language for lies. Loki could probably fool her without a thought, if he wanted. 

But she had to ask. 

“I need you to tell me everything you know about Thanos.”

All of Loki’s casualness fell away. He stood, pressing his hands against the force field separating them. “How do you know that name?”

His voice was bordering on desperate. 

Darcy crossed her arms. “You first.” 

He glared at her. It would have been much more frightening if he weren’t in a cell. Then he paced, muttering curses. He kicked the force field between them a few times. It was all very dramatic.

Finally, he spoke. “I fell through space. Thanos found me. He gave me the Chitauri as my army, and promised that Midgard would be mine to rule.”

Darcy studied him. She had no way of knowing, but his story seemed truthful enough.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t lying by omission.

“What else?” she asked.

Loki tilted his head. “There _is_ nothing else. If things had gone to plan, I could have been ruling your world as its god, thanks to Thanos.”

Darcy couldn’t shake the feeling that he was playing with her. She remembered what Jane had told her, the last time she’d met up with Thor: Asgard had been destroyed, and the refugees were living on Earth. Odin was dead. Loki had fought Thanos, and died.

Loki was playing with her, but he had _no idea_ what was at stake.

“No infinity stones? No plans for galactic domination?” 

Loki opened his mouth, but Darcy cut him off. 

“Did he mention any plans to, I don’t know, _destroy half of all life in the universe_?”

Loki’s eyes went wide, just for a second. He composed himself quickly, but Darcy took vicious pleasure in knowing that she’d caught him off balance. “You seem to have all the information you need.”

“Think again, asshole.” Darcy slammed a hand against the force field. “You think that Thanos is gonna leave Asgard alone? You think he’s gonna leave _you_ alone? You’re just as fucked as the rest of us.

“Now tell me _everything you know_ about Thanos.”

She waited a long moment, letting Loki mull over his words. Finally, he opened his mouth, and Darcy let herself believe he was actually about to say something helpful. But before he could speak, there was a crash, and the walls of the palace shook even in the dungeons, where Darcy and Loki were.

Loki looked up in alarm.

“ _Shit_. I forgot about this dude.” How did she forget this guy? There had been the whole thing with Erik and Ian and the second alien invasion that Darcy herself had witnessed firsthand and Thor had gotten to be all badass with his hammer. 

The whole event had lasted only a few minutes for Darcy, and it had quickly been overshadowed in her mind by more far-reaching events. But unless she was misremembering— totally possible, human memories were notoriously tricky like that and hers had never been the most reliable— then this was the invasion where Thor’s mom died.

“Fuck,” Darcy muttered to herself. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” There was no way she was strong enough to stop whatever was going on up there. And sure, she’d told herself that there was no way she would be able to save _everyone_ , but this was Thor’s mom. It was different.

“What’s going on?” Loki demanded.

Darcy glanced back at the guards, who were now ignoring her completely in favor of sending nervous looks toward the palace proper. “How strong is that force field, exactly?”

“If I could get out of here without injuring myself, don’t you think I would have already?”

She’d asked Erik about the physics of force fields once. She’d been kind of drunk, and most of the science had gone over her head, but she remembered a few of the principles. Mainly: any force field will break if you apply enough energy to it.

“I’m pretty sure your mom’s in serious trouble up there,” Darcy said, fishing around in her pockets. “I think I can get you out of there to help her, but in return I need all the information you have on Thanos.”

“Deal.” Either Loki was a total mama’s boy, or he was planning on backstabbing her immediately, because he didn’t hesitate. Darcy crossed her fingers, hoping it was the former, pulled her souped-up taser out of her pocket, and stuck it into the force field.

* * *

“You are an _idiot_.”

Darcy blinked. Her head was pounding, and she ached all over. It was like the hangover from hell, except she didn’t remember getting drunk the night before. And for some reason, Loki was standing next to her bed and insulting her, with Thor restraining him and Jane glaring at him. 

“I knocked myself out with the force field trick, didn’t I?”

“Darcy, you almost _died_! What were you thinking?” Whoops, Jane seemed really mad.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time.” Darcy struggled to prop herself up. “Hey, is your guys’ mom okay?”

Thor gave Darcy a sharp look. “She will recover, though I wonder how you knew about that.”

“Your little pet here seems to know all _kinds_ of things she shouldn’t.” Loki wrenched himself free of Thor’s hold.

“What is he talking about?” Jane frowned at Darcy, then at Loki. “Why were you even talking to her in the first place?”

Loki held his hands out. “ _She_ came to speak to _me_. As for the why… I hate to admit it, but I think I’m as much in the dark as the rest of you.”

Darcy looked away. She stared at the exquisite blanket covering her, in a shining blue that reminded her of one of Queen Frigga’s gowns, and she swallowed. She couldn’t do this on her own; it was time to come clean.

She told them about the time travel. She told them about her timeline, reconstructed from fallible memories. She told them about the fall of Asgard, or what little that she knew.

She told them about Thanos— the barest of details, just enough for them to understand.

“A sister?” Thor asked, apparently dumbfounded.

Darcy waved a hand in his direction. “I don’t know; you really should ask your dad about that.”

“Yes, Thor,” Loki said, amusement clear in his voice. “You really should ask Odin about that.”

Jane cut off the impending squabble. “It sounds like we need to stop Thanos from getting his hands on these infinity stones.” She began to pace. It was a familiar sight, despite the unfamiliar setting. “Odin talked about the infinity stones, too, when he spoke about the aether.” As if in response to her words, a faint red glow enveloped Jane and she swayed on her feet. Thor rushed forward, ready to catch her, but she managed to brace herself. 

“I’m alright,” Jane told him. She continued, “Do we know where the other five stones are?”

Thor looked at Loki. 

“Well, I don’t see what you need me for,” Loki said, backing toward the door. “You seem to have everything well in hand.”

“Brother,” Thor growled.

“I think I’m missing something.” Jane looked at Darcy, as if hoping she would have the answers, but Darcy didn’t know, either. She knew what the stones had looked like in Thanos’s gauntlet— there had been a few surviving pictures from the battles. But information on the stones themselves had been kept strictly need-to-know, for obvious reasons.

“I brought them back!” Loki exclaimed. 

“ _Brought_ them—” Thor began, indignant.

“Were you using one of them when you invaded Earth?” Darcy interrupted.

“No!” Loki sounded offended at the accusation.

“He was using two of them.” Thor crossed his arms. Loki shrugged, apparently satisfied with this explanation.

“The Tesseract is here, on Asgard,” Thor added. “It is locked within the treasury. The scepter remained on Earth, in the care of SHIELD.” He looked troubled at that. “Given what Darcy has said about them, perhaps that was not the wisest decision.”

“So, that’s probably not ideal,” Darcy said. “But what do we do with it? It doesn’t seem like there’s anywhere we can hide these things— can we destroy them?”

Thor looked thoughtful, but Loki shook his head. “It has been attempted in ages past. They would only be reformed.”

“So no quest for Mount Doom. Got it.” Darcy ignored Thor and Loki’s quizzical looks at her reference.

“Is there any reason we can’t use them?” Jane asked. Apparently oblivious to the shocked looks she was receiving, Jane continued. “I mean, it sounds like Thanos is coming for them no matter what we do. Why don’t we use them against him somehow?”

Thor opened his mouth, then closed it, his brow furrowed in thought. Since neither he nor Loki seemed inclined to be the voice of reason— or whatever passed for it under these circumstances— Darcy jumped in.

“Isn’t that dangerous? I mean, look at what the aether is already doing to you.” She was proud of herself for keeping her voice even. For not letting herself think of Tony Stark, Earth’s most beloved martyr.

That wasn’t going to be Jane.

Jane looked at her hands, as if expecting them to glow with the red power of the aether. “I think that if I were just able to channel it properly— I think there’s a chance I would be able to use it. I can _feel_ it.”

“I’ve never heard of a mortal able to wield an infinity stone,” Thor said.

“But _you_ can,” Jane said. 

Thor grimaced. “It seems possible.”

“Loki used two,” Darcy added.

Thor and Loki exchanged an unreadable look. Loki crossed his arms. “They have a point. _Brother_.”

Jane nodded decisively. “So if there’s no way for me to use the aether, then Thor can get some of his Asgardian friends to use the stones to help us.”

For the first time since she’d come back to the past, Darcy felt as if there was a path forward— a way they could _win_. She laughed, feeling bubbly and light with relief.

* * *

It turned out they’d been forgetting about Malekith. Kind of an oversight, given that his forces had just invaded Asgard and tried to kill the queen, but whatever. They’d had other things to discuss.

And hey, at least Darcy had been on-site for the London battle last time. With that knowledge, he was pretty easy to take care of.

Sure, the four of them had had to sneak out of Asgard without Odin discovering what they were doing— Darcy just hoped that didn’t come back to haunt them later— but they didn’t meet any major problems. 

Darcy stayed out of the way while they dealt with Malekith. She didn’t have a fancy hammer or magic or even unstable infinity stone powers. She felt a little more useful when they were back on Earth— not that she was much help with Malekith there, either, but at least she could help Jane with disrupting the portals. 

Finally, the Convergence had passed, and Loki and Thor had banished Malekith through one of the portals. Darcy and Jane were both out of breath and disheveled, but they were all alive. 

Then, Darcy finally looked around. Passers-by had been filming, and there was no doubt the attack would be on the news and internet in minutes, if it hadn’t already happened. SHIELD would be on the scene in no time at all.

“If we don’t want to get caught here, then we should go. Now.” 

They hurried down the street, but with Thor and Loki both dressed in armor, they were hilariously conspicuous. Neither of them were really great at blending into the modern-day UK.

“Where are we going?” Thor asked.

“We need to find out more about the aether,” Jane said.

At the same time, Darcy said, “We need to find the scepter Loki used.”

Loki held up one finger. “I believe I could locate the scepter, given time.”

“ _I_ know someone who may be able to help Jane,” Thor said.

Darcy couldn’t believe what she was about to say. The part of her that had watched the Battle of New York with terror and remained thankful that _Thor_ had been the brother banished to Earth still shied away from Loki. 

But there were scarier things out there than Loki, and they were all more present threats than he was. And though Darcy didn’t fully understand Loki, she was pretty sure he wouldn’t act against his own self-interests.

“You should take Jane and find out what you can about the aether. About the other stones, too, if you can. Loki and I will try to get the scepter back.”

“Darcy—” Jane began.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Darcy said breezily. “Loki has just as much interest in stopping Thanos as the rest of us. Don’t you?” 

The last part she said pointedly, aimed right at Loki.

“What if you run into trouble? We won’t have any way of knowing,” Jane said.

Loki grimaced. He flicked one of his hands, and, with a flash of green light, he was holding two small baubles, unfamiliar to Darcy in its shape. He handed one to Darcy and another to Jane. 

"These allow the users to send one another a signal from anywhere in the universe," Loki explained.

"You used to make these when we were children!" Thor exclaimed joyfully. 

"Yes," Loki replied. "And you always misused them."

Darcy carefully tucked the transponder— or whatever Asgardians would choose to call it— in her pocket, and she saw Jane doing the same.

Darcy hugged Jane tightly. "Be careful."

"You too," Jane said.

Thor stepped toward Loki, who took a step back.

"I'm not hugging you," Loki said. 

Thor wrapped an arm around Jane and called out to Heimdall, and, in a flash of light and color, they were gone. 

"So," Darcy said, looking at Loki. "I guess it's just you and me."

* * *

There were a lot of things Darcy could say about Loki, but his powers sure were convenient. They regrouped back at Jane’s mom’s flat, changed clothes— Darcy managed to find some normal-person clothes for Loki— and Darcy helped herself to some leftovers from the fridge. And then, only a few hours after Thor and Jane had left, Loki opened up a shimmering green portal.

“That’ll take us to the stone?” Darcy asked.

“It’s not exact,” Loki said. “But powerful artifacts such as the mind stone leave a distinct signature, and this should take us to its vicinity.”

Darcy didn’t exactly want to step through a portal into an unknown location and get stranded who-knew-where if Loki decided to leave her there. But she screwed up her courage and stepped through it, side-by-side with Loki. 

They emerged on the other side in an alleyway. Loki strode forward, but Darcy grabbed him by the arm. 

“Wait,” she said. “We should figure out where we are.”

It had been late afternoon in London. Wherever the were now, it was early in the morning. People were hurrying down the sidewalks, dressed in suits and business casual, and the signs were written in English. The city wasn’t one that Darcy immediately recognized, but that didn’t mean much.

“So, do you know which of these buildings the stone is in, or are we gonna have to check all of them?” Darcy asked.

Loki gestured toward a building across the street. “The magical signature is strongest there.”

The sign over the top of the building’s doorway read “Bashmu Labs” and many of the workers streaming inside were wearing lab coats. 

Darcy gave Loki a quick once-over. His height, long hair, and facial structure still made him somewhat more noticeable than the average person on the street, but he no longer stood out like a sore thumb. It seemed pretty unlikely that anyone would take a look at him and recognize him as the maniac who had tried to take over Earth a few years back.

“Alright,” she said. “Let’s go in.”

She and Loki walked in tandem across the street, toward the lab. About halfway across the street, it occurred to Darcy that this lab they were about to casually break into was probably run by SHIELD. Or, if they were really unlucky, by Hydra. 

The same thing seemed to occur to Loki. “Which weapons are you most proficient in?” he asked.

“My taser.” Darcy reached inside her bag, touching the weapon.

Loki was silent for a long moment. “I see,” he finally said.

Darcy wasn’t sure that he did, but that didn’t matter. They were at the entrance now. It was easy enough to slip inside. Easier than getting into some of the labs Darcy had worked at over the years. She wondered if there were security measures she couldn’t see, or if they were further inside the building.

Or maybe this whole building was a decoy of some sort. 

The immediate interior of the laboratory building was white and sterile. A handful of harried-looking receptionists sat at desks behind curved counters that were probably intended to look sleek and modern, but which only made the space seem more empty.

No one seemed to notice that Darcy and Loki didn’t belong.

“Do you know where we’re going?” Darcy asked in a low voice.

“Do you?” Loki asked her in return.

Apparently he was done being useful. Fine. Darcy could handle things from here on out. 

A clipboard had been left at one of the counters they passed. Darcy picked it up, pretending to page through the documents on it. 

Everyone looked more official with a clipboard. It was basically a universal law. 

As she and Loki approached as series of hallways, Darcy frowned down at the clipboard, trying very hard to look like she knew where she was going.

“Do you—” Loki began.

“Shush,” Darcy hissed.

If she were a magical space rock, where would she be?

No, wait, stupid question. If she were _studying_ a magical space rock, where would she be?

She thought about Jane and the aether. About a long, drunken tangent Jane had gone on once in the future about the infinity stones and their properties— not their universe-destroying properties, for once, but their scientific properties.

“We need a map,” Darcy said. She had an idea of what she was looking for now, but she needed to know how _this_ particular lab was organized. 

“And where do you—” Loki began.

“Come on,” Darcy said, grabbing onto his elbow and pulling him along. The crowd of employees was already starting to thin out, and she didn’t want to draw any undue attention.

Dragging Loki behind her, she peered into the open doorways they passed. The first two led to other hallways— this whole building seemed to be a maze. But the third appeared to be some kind of office, complete with a pair of completely unattended computers.

“Watch the door,” Darcy told Loki. For a moment, it seemed as if he were going to argue, but then he acquiesced, a dagger materializing in his hand.

Darcy would just… worry about that part later. Besides, anyone he stabbed was probably involved with Hydra, anyway.

 _Probably_.

Both computers were password-protected, of course. (Darcy crossed her fingers and hoped that was the _only_ security they had.) But even SHIELD’s and-slash-or Hydra’s office drones had to get lazy about passwords sometimes, right?

She looked under the keyboards— nothing. Nothing on the underside of the desks. She started riffling through the drawers, and— score! A spiral notebook, turned to a page with a list of passwords. 

Darcy began trying the passwords, one after another. The third password worked, and she was able to search through the saved documents for the map she needed.

The employee handbook saved on the _very_ unorganized desktop looked promising— she opened it up, scrolled through it quickly, and printed out the map on page 54. 

Then she hesitated.

“Anyone coming?” she asked Loki.

He flipped his dagger in the air in a move that seemed both dangerous and impressive. “None yet.”

Darcy tapped her fingernails on the desk, then returned to the computer. Maybe there was something she could use here. There didn’t seem to be anything with a handy-dandy label like “infinity stones” or “mind-control scepter”, but she began opening files at random, hoping she’d get lucky.

Noise of a scuffle at the doorway at the doorway drew her attention. Darcy glanced up, but Loki had already knocked out the guard who had come to investigate their presence.

“There are more coming,” he said.

“I’m sure you can handle them,” Darcy said.

Loki scoffed, but he didn’t argue. 

Darcy attempted to skim through the paperwork faster. She opened up a long, technical-seeming form that seemed to detail the transfer of an experiment to another facility, and was about to close it when a few key words caught her eye: _unknown properties_ , _power surges_ , and— near the middle of the document— _Battle of New York_.

This had to be it— and it had just been transferred, a few months before, to a facility in Sokovia.

She turned her attention back to Loki, who was now fully occupied fighting off a handful of guards. 

“Are you done yet?” he asked, driving his dagger into one of the guards. Darcy winced at the sight.

“It’s not here,” Darcy said.

Loki dropped the guard he was currently fighting and spun around to face her. “What do you mean, _it’s not here_?”

“It was moved to another facility.”

The last guard, taking advantage of Loki’s inattention, managed to clock him across the jaw with a baton of some sort. Before Loki could even react, Darcy had stepped forward, taser in hand, and zapped the guard. He fell to the ground, unconscious.

Loki looked to Darcy. “I don’t suppose you have a plan for what we do next.”

Darcy glanced toward the document still open on the computer, filled with information about where the scepter had been taken. “How are you with coordinates?”

* * *

On the one hand, a creepy bunker in the middle of the woods in Eastern Europe seemed more like the kind of place Darcy expected to find the scepter currently housing the mind stone.

On the other, saner, hand, Darcy was not a super big fan of creepy bunkers _or_ woods. She didn’t have any particularly strong opinions on Sokovia, except that she really would have preferred visiting as a tourist, rather than as a— whatever she was. 

“I don’t suppose you have an infiltration plan,” Loki said.

“Why do I always have to make the plans?” Darcy complained. She was about to say something else, but a sudden wind picked up, and the hairs on the back of her neck prickled.

Then, with a loud _crack_ , a figure moving almost too fast for Darcy to see slammed into her, sending her flying away from Loki. She stumbled to her feet, hand on her taser— her only weapon— but there was no sign of the person who had hit her.

It didn’t seem fair that the bad guys got superpowers, too. But it wasn’t like Darcy had expected this to be easy.

Well, okay. It had kind of been easy so far, and she’d been hoping it would stay that way. But, alas, it was clearly not meant to be.

The wind picked up again, and Darcy dropped to the ground, hoping that would be enough to dodge whatever was coming for her. It seemed to work: nothing hit her this time.

She moved back in the direction she’d come from, hoping to find Loki again. As terrible as he was, he probably wouldn’t just let her die. Her knowledge of the future was too useful.

But when Loki came into sight, he was already occupied: the green light of his magic clashed and struggled against a bright red light, emanating from a young woman. 

Holy shit, that was Scarlet Witch. Darcy couldn’t see her face clearly from this distance, but her bright red jacket, her long hair, her quick hand motions— and, of course, her powers— they were all familiar.

Darcy wasn’t the kind of nerd who religiously followed news about the Avengers. But she had watched the news, so she still knew the basics: at some point after the killer robot tried to take over the world, the Avengers lineup had changed, and one of their new members was a young woman named Wanda Maximoff— codename Scarlet Witch.

Apparently, _this_ was what she’d been up to before her superhero debut.

Darcy shoved that aside to think about later. Right now, she and Loki were up against the speedster who kept taking her out— the one she couldn’t even see— and a woman who might be the single most powerful Avenger. 

She was starting to think they might be a little outclassed. Still, they had to get that infinity stone, and if no one was going to sit down and talk this out, then there was only one thing to do.

“Hold them off!” Darcy told Loki. Then, like an absolute idiot, she ran toward the bunker.

She was absolutely going to die. Some SHIELD or Hydra goon was going to shoot her and she was going to die in the middle of nowhere because she’d gotten it into her head that she could save the world.

Darcy slowed down as she approached the bunker and gripped tightly on her taser. Fine. Maybe she _was_ an idiot for trying this. But if it was at all up to her, she wasn’t going to just hand the Earth over to Thanos on a silver platter.

Inside the bunker, sirens were blaring and lights were flashing— Darcy guessed it was some kind of proximity alert. It was distracting enough that the handful of people on duty didn’t notice her entrance.

They definitely noticed once she took that one guy down with her taser, though. There was just no good way to do that stealthily.

She took off running down a corridor, doing her best to ignore the sound of gunshots behind her. 

Maybe her dumb luck would hold out and she would find the mind stone before anyone managed to actually shoot her.

A sudden gush of wind, and a flash of red light let Darcy know that she was no longer alone.

“I’ve got this,” Wanda said, speaking to a man about her own age with bleach-blond hair. “You can handle the other one.”

The man sped away, and Darcy briefly wondered if it was him or Loki she should be feeling sorry for at the moment. Then she remembered where she was, and decided to save all of her pity for herself.

“Look,” Darcy ventured, keeping her eyes trained on the red glow emanating from the other woman’s hands. “We’re not trying to hurt anyone. But that scepter—”

Wanda paused. “The scepter. You know something about it.”

Darcy blinked rapidly, disconcerted by the turn this conversation had taken. “Um, kinda, yeah?”

Before Darcy could react, Wanda had pressed her fingertips to Darcy’s forehead. For one brief moment, Darcy was certain she was going to die. Then, she had the brief impression of another presence in her memories. 

Wanda— because it had to be Wanda— hesitated for a moment on one of Darcy’s memories of watching the Scarlet Witch on television, fighting alongside the rest of the Avengers. 

That had to be weird. Darcy kind of wanted to say something comforting, but… she kind of had something more important to do, first. She focused on her few memories of Thanos: of the videos she’d seen of him, of the shining gauntlet he’d worn, filled with gems of infinite power.

Wanda stepped away. The sensation of someone else in Darcy’s head disappeared, replaced by a pounding headache.

“You’re trying to stop him.”

It wasn’t a question, but Darcy answered anyway. “Someone has to.”

There was a hard look in Wanda’s eyes. “Then follow me.”

The guards would have posed no difficulty for Wanda, even if they’d been prepared for her to fight them. As it was, she tossed them aside with a single wave of her hand.

She led Darcy to a hidden door, and to a room beyond. There, sitting on a small table, was the scepter.

Screwing up her courage, Darcy reached out and touched it. Nothing bad _seemed_ to happen. She picked it up, and breathed a sigh of relief when it didn’t instantly kill her.

Then an explosion sounded from outside the bunker.

Darcy spun around to look at Wanda, who looked almost as alarmed as she felt. Almost as one, the two of them sprinted out of the hidden room and to the front of the bunker.

As Darcy had already half-expected, there was Loki and the blond man from before.

And there, surrounding them, was Captain America, Iron Man, Hawkeye, and Black Widow.

“What, no Hulk?” Darcy asked, before she thought better of it.

If looks could have killed, she was certain Loki’s glare would have destroyed her on the spot.

* * *

So this wasn’t ideal.

Apparently, one of the alarms in the bunker had sent an alert over to someone at SHIELD, and now the Avengers and their backup at SHIELD had arrested everyone. From their perspective, it _did_ look pretty bad: Darcy had definitely been working with Loki to steal that scepter, and the last time that thing had been in Loki’s hands, he had been trying to take over the Earth.

Darcy wasn’t entirely sure why they had arrested Wanda and the blond speedster— who was apparently Wanda’s twin brother, Pietro— but she figured they were just covering their bases.

They were all fully restrained, and their weapons— including the scepter _and_ Darcy’s taser— had been taken. Honestly, Darcy thought they were going a little overboard, using the restraints for superhumans on _her_ , but apparently they didn’t know she was just a boring ol’ human. She and Loki had been separated from Wanda and Pietro, and were being questioned by Captain America himself, under the eyes of watchful SHIELD agents.

The transponder Loki had created was still in her pocket. If her hands were free, she’d be able to send a signal to Jane and Thor, and hope they weren’t too busy on their magical space journey to pay attention.

She made a face at Loki, hoping he would correctly interpret it as her asking whether he could do anything about this. 

By the quizzical look he gave her, she had been overestimating his skills of facial interpretation.

Captain America paused in what he was saying and turned to look at Darcy. She attempted to look innocent, but she’d never been particularly good at that. Still, he must have judged her the lesser threat, because he turned back to Loki.

“What was your plan— steal that thing back and try to take over the Earth again? We stopped you before and we would stop you again,” Captain America declared.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Loki scoffed.

“You made it pretty clear what kind of person you are last time we met,” Captain America said. “I don’t know what you think you’re pulling, but—” 

"He's not _that_ bad," Darcy interrupted. Maybe under other circumstances she would have felt bad about interrupting _the_ Captain America, but the day’s events had left her a little short on patience. "Sure, he's selfish, egotistical, and annoying, but that describes half of my ex-boyfriends."

Captain America turned to look at her. "I'm sorry, ma'am. Who are you?"

"Darcy Lewis. I'm a friend of Thor. Well, actually, I'm a friend of Thor’s girlfriend, so if they break up, I'm siding with Jane."

"I am also siding with Jane," Loki interjected.

Darcy snorted. Given how openly Loki disliked Jane, he was just being petty.

“Look, Cap,” Darcy said. “Jane and I discovered some things while we were on Asgard, talking with Thor— and with Loki, too— and that scepter is dangerous in the wrong hands.”

Captain America crossed his arms. “I’m well aware of that, Miss Lewis.” 

She got the feeling that he didn’t consider her hands to be the right hands, let alone Loki’s.

Darcy searched for an explanation that didn’t involve time travel. The Avengers would be a big help with Thanos— but there were SHIELD agents around, too, and she didn’t know whose side they were on. 

And _there_ was a thought. Captain America had taken Hydra down the first time, back in the forties. In Darcy’s original timeline, he’d done it again in D.C. It was basically his whole _thing_.

“How much do you really trust SHIELD, Captain?” Darcy asked.

“What kind of question is that?” For the first time, he was giving her his full attention.

Darcy eyed the agents around the room, and noticed Loki doing the same. But she had a little more reason than Loki to trust in Captain America— in Steve Rogers. She’d read about him in history books and watched the Howling Commando cartoon on Saturday mornings. She’d seen him in action at the Battle of New York and in D.C. and against Thanos.

If she couldn’t trust _him_ , then who could she trust?

“Hydra isn’t gone,” she said, her voice low. “It never was. It’s been part of SHIELD since the beginning.”

“Don’t be ridiculous—” one of the agents said.

“You expect me to just believe this?” Captain America asked.

“No,” Darcy said. “But I expect you to look into it.”

“And you’re saying that’s why you teamed up with a _supervillain_ to steal the scepter.” He sounded skeptical.

“I wouldn’t really call him a supervillain,” Darcy said.

“Well—” Loki began.

“If you’re such a great villain then why do I have to do all the planning?” Darcy asked him.

“We’ve gotten off-track,” Captain America said, before Loki could answer.

Fine. Point taken.

“Look,” Darcy tried. “Just let me contact Thor, and he’ll vouch for us. Well, for me.”

Loki sniffed. “He’ll vouch for me.”

“You have a way of contacting him?” Captain America interrupted. He was starting to sound weary, like the experience of dealing with Darcy and Loki had exhausted him.

“Sure— it’s um, right in my pocket,” Darcy said, trying to turn so that he could reach into the front pocket of her jeans.

“He won’t be able to activate it,” Loki said. At Darcy’s look, he continued. “It’s keyed to you.”

“You didn’t think that was important to tell me?” Darcy asked.

“I’m telling you _now_!”

Darcy fervently wished her hands were free, just so she could wrap them around Loki’s throat. Instead, she turned back to Captain America and smiled as sweetly as she could. “I guess you’re going to need to free my hands, then.”

“Sir—” one of the agents cut in.

“Look, it’s not like I’m a threat to you guys,” Darcy said. “I’m just a normal human. And not like a Black Widow-style normal human— I get winded if I walk up the stairs too fast. I’m very sure that you could all take me down with like, your pinky fingers.”

Darcy wasn’t sure whether to be proud or offended that it only took a little bit more convincing before the agents— and more importantly, the captain— agreed to take off her restraints and let her send a signal to Jane and Thor.

When her hands were finally freed, she removed the transponder from her pocket and turned it over. There was a small divot in it, just large enough for her to press her thumb into, and when she did, it lit up.

“Let’s hope Jane is paying attention,” she said. She knew all-too-well how distractible Jane could often be.

Loki smirked. “Oh, she’ll pay attention.”

* * *

It was about half an hour of awkward waiting before Thor and Jane suddenly appeared in a burst of light and color. Both of them looked distinctly disheveled, and the first thing Jane did was cross the room and glower at Loki.

“Did you have to make that thing _zap_ me?” she asked. Darcy wondered just how many _other_ surprises Loki had hidden in those transponders.

“It worked, didn’t it?” Loki sounded extremely smug. “Now will you tell these imbeciles that I’m reformed and I come in peace?”

Thor stared at Loki for a long moment. Then he laughed. “You’ve never been peaceful in your life, brother!” He clapped Loki on the shoulder. “But in this instance, he means no harm.”

As Thor attempted to convince Captain America and the SHIELD agents to let Loki free and allow them to have the scepter, Jane pulled Darcy aside.

“We have a _spaceship_!” she exclaimed in a hushed voice, her eyes sparkling with excitement.

“Seriously?” Darcy couldn’t stop herself from grinning. That was basically the coolest thing she could imagine. “And what about—” she glanced at the SHIELD agents and lowered her voice. “What about the other stuff you were doing? Did you figure it out?”

Jane held up her wrist, showing off a bracelet Darcy had never seen her wear. It was a cuff made of some kind of silver metal, and circled her whole wrist. But most importantly, there was a red stone set in the center, with delicate carvings surrounding it. 

“This is supposed to help me use it,” Jane said. “We have them for all the others, too.”

“Does it work?” Darcy asked, a bit doubtful. Was a bit of metal really all it took?

“Yes— well, I need more practice. But the person we spoke to— she said she enchanted the metal, but if my theory about Allspeak translating advanced science as a form of magic is still correct, then I think it was actually a form of advanced quantum—”

“Jane,” Darcy broke in, laughing a bit. “You’re going to have to slow down if you want me to understand _any_ of that.”

Jane smiled. “You should really give yourself more credit, Darcy.”

* * *

In the end, Darcy wasn’t entirely sure what Thor said to convince to convince SHIELD to let them go, but they were finally released, and turned out onto the sidewalk with their weapons returned to them.

She was even more surprised when she saw Wanda and Pietro Maximoff exit the building at the same time. The two of them seemed distinctly irritated, but Wanda seemed to soften a bit when she saw Darcy.

“You got it back, then,” she said, nodding at the scepter in Darcy’s hand.

“Yeah.” Darcy felt awkward, and was looking for the best way to say ‘bye, headed off to space now,’ when an idea occurred to her. 

“Hey Janie,” she called. “Have any more of those bracelets?”

“Yeah,” Jane said slowly. “But what are you—”

Darcy held her hand out. “Trust me, okay?”

Jane handed her a bracelet, just like the one around Jane’s wrist. The only difference was that this one had no infinity stone set into it. With only a little trepidation, Darcy pulled the yellow stone out of the scepter and placed it into the bracelet. It burned her as she touched it, and she couldn’t help but wonder how quickly it would have destroyed her if she had tried to hold onto it— if she had tried to use it.

She pushed the thoughts aside. She was good at that, after all.

“I think you should hold onto this.” Darcy held the bracelet out to Wanda, who stared at her, wide-eyed. “Keep it safe. Use it, if need to, although I’m not really sure you need it.”

“I’m not an Avenger,” Wanda said. “I’m not— I’m not the person you think I am.”

“I think you’re strong,” Darcy said. “And I think that you care at least as much about what happens to Earth as anyone else who lives here.”

Slowly— so slowly— Wanda’s hands closed around the bracelet. “I’ll keep it safe.” Then, in the blink of an eye, she and Pietro were gone.

Darcy turned back to face Jane, Thor, and Loki, who were all watching her with various expressions of bewilderment. “Alright!” she said, clapping her hands together. “What’s all this I hear about a spaceship?”

* * *

The spaceship was pretty rad. Not just because it was a freakin’ _spaceship_ — that was cool all on its own. But also because it was high-tech in a way that no one on Earth could replicate yet— not even Tony Stark.

Well, maybe someone in Wakanda. Darcy had heard a lot of rumors about their technology, but even after they’d opened up to the world, they were still pretty secretive. She’d never had the chance to really see it in action.

She, Jane, Thor, and Loki all settled around a table, and Darcy began to feel the weight of everything she’d recently been through really settle onto her.

“So,” she began. 

“It seems you were successful,” Thor said, nodding to the now-useless scepter Darcy was still carrying.

“You guys, too,” Darcy said. “I saw Jane’s shiny new jewelry.”

“Any news of the other stones?” Loki asked.

Darcy was a little surprised at his involvement in this conversation— maybe he was more invested in this whole ‘save the universe’ gig than he liked to let on. 

If Thor was surprised at Loki interjecting himself into the conversation, he didn’t show it. “There have been rumors of the power stone, but nothing certain.”

“What about the time stone and the soul stone?” Darcy asked.

“The time stone is said to be guarded by a sorcerer. As for the soul stone—” Thor shared a look with Jane, and Darcy didn’t like the look on either of their faces. “Some years ago, one of Thanos’s daughters sought the soul stone.”

“Did she find it?” Darcy wasn’t sure if she wanted the answer, either way.

“It’s impossible to say. No one who spoke to her about the stone remains alive.”

Well. _That_ was ominous.

“Which daughter?” As usual, Loki seemed to know something the rest of them didn’t.

“I can’t believe he has more than one,” Darcy muttered.

“Gamora,” Jane said. “Does that name mean anything to you?”

“No, nothing.” Loki answered easily, but Darcy couldn’t help but scrutinize him, wondering if she would somehow catch him in a lie _this_ time.

She didn’t, of course. She thought she would have to know Loki for a very long time before she could catch him out in a lie.

Either way, the room had grown quiet, as though no one knew how to handle the subject matter. Darcy changed the subject the best way she knew how: by charging straight ahead.

“So, I guess we should look for the power stone next?” Her voice was laced with cheer she didn’t feel. “It sounded like you had a lead.”

“I think we all need to rest first.” Jane cast a critical eye over Darcy. “You especially. And since we’re so close to Earth, I want to pick a few things up before we start traveling again.”

It turned out that beds on a spaceship were pretty rad, too. Or at least, they were when Darcy hadn’t slept in who-knew-too-many hours— which was why she was out like a light as soon as she hit the pillow.

* * *

Darcy was falling. 

She had the distinct impression that it was a dream— that she’d hit the ground and wake up in her own bed, back in Sacramento. It had happened before.

And then she hit the ground, and she realized: she was already awake.

Darcy scrambled backwards, trying to get a sense of where she was— of what had happened— but everything seemed wrong. This looked like New York, but the streets were empty. And the sky— the sky seemed to be a reflection of the ground.

Worst of all, it was silent. No cars, no people, no birds, no _wind_ — nothing. 

That was what it reminded her of. Of being nothing. Of how easily everything she knew could disappear. Of what would happen again if her slipshod plan to stop Thanos didn’t work out.

Darcy stood up, telling herself she could panic about Thanos _later_. 

She brushed off the sweats she had worn to bed, even though there didn’t seem to be any dirt here. At least she hadn’t slept naked— _that_ would have been embarrassing.

“Hello?” she called. 

Footsteps echoed through the street. A figure in saffron yellow robes approached her.

“You have been seeking the infinity stones,” the figure said. 

“Is that why you brought me here?” Darcy’s mind raced. This— _being_ must have brought Darcy here, wherever _here_ was. And she was interested in the infinity stones. 

None of that seemed to spell out good things for Darcy.

“You don’t know who I am.” The mysterious figure seemed amused. “I am the Sorcerer Supreme.” She removed her hood dramatically, revealing herself to be a bald, human-seeming woman with a nearly-ageless face. “It is my sworn duty to protect Earth from mystical threats.”

“Yeah, well, you’re doing a bang-up job.” 

Someday, Darcy would meet a powerful being and her first instinct _wouldn’t_ be to talk back to them. Apparently, this was not that day.

The Sorcerer Supreme did not seem amused. “I do not answer to _you_.” Her hands began to glow, which Darcy had learned was _always_ a bad sign. “The infinity stones are more dangerous than you can possibly comprehend. They have a power that could throw the entire universe into chaos.”

“I comprehend a lot more than you think.” Darcy clenched her hands into fists, digging her fingernails into the flesh of her palms. It hurt, but it reminded her that she still _existed_. 

“I _comprehend_ that Thanos is coming, and he’s going to destroy half the universe if he gets his hands on these stones. And if you think _I’m_ a threat, then you are nowhere _near_ ready to deal with the real thing.”

In an ideal world, this was the part where she would have stormed off like a badass. Unfortunately, this wasn’t an ideal world. Darcy wasn’t even sure if this was the _real_ world. She was basically at the Sorcerer Supreme’s mercy.

“I have seen this Thanos,” the Sorcerer Supreme mused. “You truly believe he poses this great a threat?”

“Absolutely.” 

The Sorcerer Supreme must have heard the conviction in Darcy’s voice, or seen it in her face. She let the glow fade from her hands. “My order guards the Eye of Agamotto— what you may call the time stone. We will not hand it over to an outsider, but we will continue to guard it, as we have for centuries.”

It hadn’t been good enough last time. Thanos had still gotten his hands on the stone somehow, no matter how good this mystical order was. But Darcy didn’t think she was going to be able to be able to change the Sorcerer Supreme’s mind.

“Okay,” Darcy said. “Fine. But… is there a way I can contact you, if necessary?”

The Sorcerer Supreme pursed her lips. “177A Bleecker Street, in New York. You may tell my associates there that you wish to speak to the Ancient One.”

Darcy really didn’t know what she’d expected, but she’d kind of hoped for an email address. 

Before she could formulate a reply, the Sorcerer Supreme— or was it the Ancient One?— flicked her hands, and Darcy felt herself disappear in a flash of light.

* * *

Space was _awesome_.

When she was a kid, Darcy had wanted to go to space camp— right up until she learned how expensive space camp was, and how much physical activity was involved. She hadn’t actually wanted to train to be an astronaut— or even to _pretend_ to train to be an astronaut— she’d just wanted to do the cool stuff. To learn about stars, to find out what it would feel like to be in zero-G, to simulate walking on the moon.

Travelling in an Asgardian spaceship was _way_ cooler than space camp. They’d settled into an odd routine of sorts: Jane took measurements from whichever scientific instruments she was most interested in, while Darcy organized her research from the day before. Thor and Loki usually made themselves scarce during this part of the day, although sometimes Thor would gaze sappily at Jane, or Loki would interject with unnecessarily snarky comments.

Then at some point in the day, Jane would try to practice using the reality stone. Thor usually tried to cajole Loki into helping her in this process— after all, Loki’s fighting style was closest to what Jane would achieve when using the stone. Occasionally, Loki would actually help. More often, he would find an excuse to pick a fight with Thor, or would disappear elsewhere on the ship, and Jane would try to figure out how the reality stone worked the old fashioned way: trial and error.

On one occasion, Thor tried to teach both Darcy and Jane how to fly the ship. Jane quickly drifted away— she was too distractible for the multi-instrument panel, and there was science to be done. Darcy, though, picked it up pretty handily. She wasn’t exactly Han Solo, but she figured she could handle herself in a pinch.

“So, is learning to fly a spaceship just part of the deal for Asgardian princes?” Darcy asked Thor during one of their lessons.

Thor laughed. “I suppose. When we were young, Loki and I used to borrow the skiffs kept at the palace and take our friends on quests.”

“I once took my aunt’s convertible for a joyride so I could show off for some college guys,” Darcy offered. “They were pretty easily impressed, though.”

Still, Darcy found herself at loose ends more often than not. She tried to be grateful for it, because there were still three infinity stones left to find. Things couldn’t possibly stay this easy forever.

Then, the news came: the power stone was on Xandar.

* * *

Even if they hadn’t seen the recent battle on the newsfeeds, Darcy still would have known about it as soon as they entered the atmosphere: the wreckage of spaceships was everywhere, some of it still smoking. The capital city itself was scarred, with buildings half-demolished. The citizens— some human-looking, some distinctly not— seemed grim, but they walked with their heads held high, as if they refused to be afraid.

It reminded Darcy of the footage she’d seen of the Battle of New York, and its aftermath. It proved what she’d known since she met Thor: people really were the same all across the galaxy.

She held onto that thought. Maybe it would prove useful, in convincing the Xandarians to give up the stone. But— no, that wasn't Darcy’s responsibility. She'd left negotiating with the Nova Corps up to the two people who (more or less) knew what they were doing.

In the meantime, she and Jane were free to be tourists on an alien planet.

It was easy to see how beautiful the city might be under normal circumstances, when it hadn’t just been through a horrific battle. The walkways between the gleaming buildings were wide and clean, and small ships zipped past overhead. There were intermittent green spaces, filled with trees and flowers.

It was exactly the kind of city Darcy wished she could spend more time in. Maybe, when all of this was over— _if_ it was ever over— she could come back here, and spend more than a few short days exploring. For now, though, she would content herself with walking arm-in-arm with Jane and exploring the odds and ends various shops had for sale on this new planet.

It was all very peaceful— until she saw a very small, furry creature cackling and running away from half a dozen guards in what she now recognized as the uniform of the Nova Corps.

“Is… is that a raccoon?” Darcy asked, blinking rapidly.

“Convergent evolution?” Jane offered, weakly.

That didn’t even _begin_ to answer Darcy’s questions. Unfortunately, the maybe-raccoon was fast, and Darcy didn’t know the area. She never even had a chance of catching up— or of finding out what was going on.

Which was a shame, because above all else, she _thrived_ on a good story. 

After that little interruption, she and Jane finished up their shopping and headed back to the ship. To Darcy’s surprise, Thor and Loki were already there.

“Please tell me you have it,” she said.

Thor glared at Loki.

“In my defense—” Loki began.

“Oh my god,” Jane muttered.

Thor raised his voice slightly to be heard above the others.“My _brother_ has offended the Nova Corps and is no longer allowed to set foot on the planet.”

Darcy really didn’t know how she hadn’t seen that coming. Of _course_ that’s what had happened.

“They don’t even have the stone in their possession,” Loki said dismissively. A bit of light glowed around his hands and turned into a small, green ball.

“What?” Jane exclaimed.

“Who has it?” Darcy asked.

“The so-called Guardians of the Galaxy.” Loki tossed his newly-formed magic ball up in the air, and caught it again.

“They are supposed to hand it over to the Nova Corps in a few days,” Thor said. “But there is a chance for us to speak to them tomorrow.”

“Which us?” Jane asked. Seemed like a good question to Darcy, since apparently Loki had mortally offended the Nova Corps.

“These Guardians seem to be warriors of some sort. I think that I should speak to them,” Thor said. 

“Yeah, that makes sense.” Darcy was on-board with that plan— no one did the warrior thing quite as well as Thor did. “I’m guessing you want Jane with you? Moral support, all that jazz?” 

“Actually,” Thor began, sending an apologetic glance toward Jane. “I was hoping you would accompany me. You have more knowledge of this situation than any of us.”

So that was how Darcy found herself accompanying Thor to the Nova Corps headquarters the next day, to meet with the Guardians of the Galaxy. Thor was decked out in full armor, looking very prince-like and impressive. Darcy was dressed in one of the nicer outfits she’d brought from Earth, but it just didn’t have the same _oomph_.

(Jane had offered to lend Darcy one of the Asgardian dresses she’d acquired, but while it was a nice thought, they really weren’t the same size. Darcy would rather wear Earth clothes for an important meeting than have her boobs spilling out of her top.)

The two of them were escorted to a surprisingly small room, already occupied by two people. One was a human-looking man with light hair and a dark red jacket. He was clearly carrying some kind of weapons, but they were holstered at his hip. He smiled disarmingly at them.

The woman he was with did no such thing— instead, she eyed both Thor and Darcy with clear suspicion. Her body was human-shaped, but her green skin and pink hair— was that natural?— told Darcy that she was most definitely an alien. And— yep, that was definitely a sword at her hip.

“I’m Peter Quill,” the man said. “Star-Lord. You might have heard of me.”

Darcy had not. A glance at Thor said that he had not, either.

Seemingly unconcerned by their non-reaction, Peter continued on. “And my teammate here is the lovely, deadly, Gamora.”

Gamora inclined her head slightly.

Thor began to introduce the two of them, but Darcy was already lost in thought. _Gamora_. She knew that name. 

“What’s your game here?” Darcy asked, cutting Thor off in his explanation of that ‘Midgard’ was the same place Peter called ‘Terra’. (Although that was definitely something to be explored later.)

“What do you mean?” Gamora asked, eyes narrowing. 

“I mean, normally, this is the part where I ask if you’ve heard of Thanos, but I think you probably know more about him than I do,” Darcy said.

Gamora stiffened. 

“Look, whatever you’re trying to pull—” Peter began, stepping in front of Gamora. Like he was trying to protect _her_ from _them_.

“Perhaps we should allow Lady Darcy to explain?” Thor suggested, although he had edged closer to Darcy, clearly ready to step in if violence broke out.

Sometimes it was really easy to see what Jane saw in him.

“Thanos is looking for the infinity stones. Last I heard, you hunted down the soul stone for him,” Darcy said, watching Gamora carefully. “And now you have the power stone.”

“There is no one who wants Thanos to obtain the infinity stones less than I do,” Gamora said. “He calls me his daughter, but he is no father to me, and his vision for the universe is…” She looked away as she trailed off.

Darcy _wanted_ to believe her. Apparently, she had helped save Xandar from an invasion just a few days previously! But there was just too much at stake to be naive.

Thor must have felt the same. He crossed his arms and asked, “What became of the soul stone?”

“It remains in the same place as ever,” Gamora answered. Her hand had strayed to the hilt of her sword. “Thanos will never be able to find it there.”

“You’re wrong,” Darcy said. She hadn’t meant to speak aloud, but Gamora had just sounded so sure of herself. 

All attention was on her now. She needed to explain, somehow.

“Darcy…” Thor began.

“I traveled back in time,” Darcy said, focusing on keeping her voice steady. “The future I came from— Thanos won. He got all the stones. He erased half of all life in the universe.” She forced herself to meet Gamora’s eyes and was perversely pleased that the other woman looked horrified. “The things he did— they were fixed, eventually, but that doesn’t erase the fact that they happened.

“Hiding the stones obviously doesn’t work,” Darcy continued. “It’s what everyone did last time. So we’re going to use them, if we have to. We’re going to be prepared.” 

“You have the other stones in your possession?” Gamora asked. 

“Only one of them,” Darcy said. “The others are with people we trust.” With people she _hoped_ they could trust.

Gamora and Peter shared a meaningful look. 

“It took all four of us to use the power stone,” Peter said.

 _That_ was a detail Darcy hadn’t heard before. Not just about the four of them using the stone together— that the power stone had been used by them at _all_. The Nova Corps seemed to have hushed some things up.

Typical.

“We have a way of channeling the stones’ power,” Thor offered.

Gamora and Peter shared another look.

“I don’t want it,” Gamora told him.

Peter held his hands up. “I don’t want it, either!”

“Well, we can’t give it to the Nova Corps _now_ ,” she said. “And I’m not giving that kind of power to Rocket or Drax.”

“But you’d give it to me?” Peter asked.

“You’re marginally less of an idiot. _Marginally_.” 

Darcy felt a little bit better about entrusting universe-changing power to the kind of people who didn’t want it— after all, they probably wouldn’t decide to take over the world with it, or something. That still didn’t make watching this argument any less awkward.

Gamora and Peter were both shouting by now. Thor gave Darcy a helpless look— clearly he didn’t know whether to let them continue or to break them up, either. Darcy shrugged. They were either going to yell themselves out or try to kill each other, and she didn’t see the point in interfering unless weapons were actually drawn.

“They are not at all like I expected,” Thor said, in an undertone.

“I don’t think anyone would expect _them_ ,” Darcy replied.

“Fine!” Peter exclaimed. The room suddenly fell silent, and Darcy wondered if he’d heard her.

“We’ve decided to share the power stone,” Gamora said. “We will keep it from falling into the wrong hands.”

Sure, whatever. Darcy had heard of worse ideas. She fished one of the fancy infinity stone bracelets out of her pocket and handed it to Peter— he scared her less than Gamora. 

He gave a low whistle when he saw it. “This is all it takes to stop the stone from vaporizing us?”

Thor stepped forward. “It was forged by the dwarves of Nidavellir—”

“Yeah, it’s like, magic or something.” Darcy had listened to numerous explanations— both magical and scientific— of how those things worked and they still made her head hurt to think about. She’d rather just skip that part.

Peter pulled an orb out of his pocket and, with a trepidatious glance at Gamora, twisted it open. Inside the orb was a glowing purple stone— the power stone.

Once the stone was set into the bracelet, he tucked it back into his pocket. “Now we just have to dodge the Nova Corps, instead of handing this thing over to them,” he said.

For the first time since Darcy had seen her, Gamora smiled. “I’m sure we can handle that.” She tilted her head in Peter’s direction. “Do you know where Rocket and Drax went?”

“They said they had to settle up some business downtown,” Peter replied.

“We better find them before we all get arrested. Again.” Gamora stepped toward the door, clearly about to leave Darcy and Thor wondering about that very intriguing comment. Then she abruptly turned back toward Darcy. 

“Vormir,” she said.

“Sorry?” Was that some kind of code word Darcy was supposed to understand?

“That’s where you’ll find the soul stone,” Gamora said. Then she was gone.

“It’s been great, but we should probably get out of here before the Nova Corps figures out what we’re up to.” Peter shot finger guns at them, then ran after Gamora.

* * *

They were halfway to Vormir when Thor called everyone together into the ship’s little dining hall.

“The Allfather has noted Loki’s absence and has called for us to give an accounting of ourselves,” Thor said.

Loki grimaced, but did not disagree.

“While we are on Asgard, would you have us retrieve the space stone?” Thor asked. 

It suddenly hit Darcy that the prince of Asgard was deferring to her, as if she knew what she was doing. As if she were anywhere near responsible enough to hold the fate of the universe in her hands. She took a deep breath to steady herself, and thought. 

Thor himself, or another one of the Avengers, would make a good choice, but Darcy didn’t like the idea of keeping all of the infinity stones on Earth. That seemed too much like doing Thanos’s job for him.

“Is there someone on Asgard you trust to look after it, who would use it responsibly?” 

Thor and Loki shared a look. “Mother,” they both said.

That wasn’t who Darcy would have chosen, but from everything she’d heard, Queen Frigga was a total badass. Even Loki almost respected her, which was its own kind of endorsement.

“So I guess we should set a new course?” By ‘we,’ she meant ‘Thor,’ of course— Darcy had stared at maps and charts until she went cross-eyed in an attempt to understand how they were getting from Xandar to Vormir— and exactly how far both places were from Earth— but she still had no idea where Asgard was in relation to anywhere else.

But Thor was already shaking his head. “Our father tolerated your presence before because of the aether, but he will not wish to see any more mortals in Asgard. It will be better if you two continue on; Heimdall will carry Loki and me back to Asgard.” 

“We’ll come track you down, if we have to,” Jane said, placing a hand on Thor’s chest. He placed his hand on hers, and the two of them spent a truly uncomfortable amount of time gazing into each others’ eyes.

After all the time Jane had spent waiting for Thor to come back, wondering if he even remembered her, Darcy guessed it was pretty comforting for Jane to have a whole spaceship at her disposal— just in case. 

“If you two are _quite_ finished,” Loki said. 

Jane pulled Thor into a kiss. At this point, Darcy wasn’t sure if it was because she really wanted to give the guy a goodbye kiss or if this was another one of her weird ways of getting one over on Loki. Either way, things were getting a little hot and heavy— and uncomfortable for the two third wheels— before Thor finally pulled away, placing his hands on Jane’s shoulders.

“We will return as soon as we can,” he promised.

Yeah, sure. Darcy had heard that one before.

* * *

So far, alien planets had been pretty fun: shiny architecture, cool aliens, and not _too_ much life-threatening danger.

(Well, except for that whole Malekith thing, but that was in its own category.)

Vormir was different. Even the atmosphere— which glowed purple— seemed menacing. And when Darcy and Jane reached the surface, it was barren and rocky.

According to the ship’s instruments, the planet was almost entirely deserted. There seemed to be only one structure of any note, with dual towers rising above the rest of the landscape. There was one path, which seemed to lead to the structure.

“Onward, I guess?” Darcy hoped she sounded braver than she felt.

Jane nodded, her jaw set in the same stubborn expression that she’d worn before requesting grants from committees who had spent years calling her findings useless. She wasn’t backing down, either.

Darcy didn’t know how long the two of them walked along that path. It was quiet on Vormir; the only sound was their footsteps and their breathing.

“Darcy, daughter of Phillip,” a voice suddenly said. 

Darcy spun around, looking for the speaker. She suddenly wished they had waited for Thor and Loki. “Who’s there?”

“Jane, daughter of Isaac.” A figure had materialized in front of them on the path. It was almost entirely in shadow— no, its tattered cloak seemed to be _made_ of shadow, dissolving into mist as it trailed away from the figure’s body. Its face was entirely obscured by its hood, though Darcy wasn’t sure she wanted to see what such a creature’s face looked like— if it even had one at all.

“What do you want from us?” Jane asked. Darcy was kind of impressed that she managed to speak at all, with a thing like that staring them down.

“Consider me a guide,” the figure rasped. “To you, and to all who seek the soul stone.”

“Alright, then,” Darcy said. “Guide us.”

The figure wordlessly began to move up the path, in the same direction Darcy and Jane had already been walking. She couldn’t really tell if it was floating or walking, what with the mysterious cape. 

Honestly, the guide seemed a bit superfluous, except for the extra creep factor it added. There was only one path.

They could have walked for hours, or days. Time seemed meaningless, and the path seemed to go on forever through the changeless Vormir wasteland. The only real landmarks Darcy could see were the two black towers, steadily growing closer.

Finally, the three of them reached the top of a hill. There were a few stray columns which looked like they could have belonged to a monument or temple of some kind, but otherwise, the hilltop was as bare as the rest of the landscape, ending in a sheer cliff.

“What you seek lies in front of you... as does what you fear,” the guide intoned.

“I fear a lot of things,” Darcy said, laughing nervously, but the joke fell flat.

“How do we get the stone?” Jane asked. 

The guide looked pleased, if such a thing was possible. “To ensure that whoever possesses it understands its power, the stone demands a sacrifice. In order to take the stone, you must lose that which you love. A soul, for a soul.”

Darcy clenched onto Jane’s arm in horror, suddenly comprehending the trap. The other stones had been easy compared to this.

Jane glanced from the cloaked figure to the cliff. “Maybe we should just leave this one,” she murmured.

But Thanos had gotten it somehow, in the previous timeline, and there was no doubt he would find a way to obtain it again. Was there anyone he loved enough to sacrifice for the stone, or had he made one of his followers commit the act for him? What did a semi-sentient, all-powerful rock count as love, anyway?

“This is _bullshit_ ,” Darcy said, and then realized she’d spoken out loud. “Hey, Janie, remind me what your bracelet does?”

Jane touched the red stone on her bracelet, which seemed to pulse with light. “You think that’ll work?”

Darcy shrugged. “It’s worth a try, right?” 

“Okay,” Jane said. “Okay.” She stepped back, then hesitated. “You really trust me with this?”

Darcy had barely seen Jane use the stone’s powers since they’d left Asgard, but that didn’t matter.

“Obviously.” Darcy let her faith in Jane bleed into the word. There was no one in the world— no one in the _universe_ — she trusted more than Jane. No one else she would have followed around the world in two different timelines, through thick and thin and grant applications and breakups.

She watched as Jane closed her eyes and visibly took a deep breath. Then, Jane was surrounded by the red glow of the reality stone, which slowly dissipated into the air.

For a moment, Darcy thought it hadn’t worked. That they were going to have to leave without the stone— because the other option wasn’t an option at all. Not for Darcy.

Then, she watched as another version of herself stepped toward Jane. Darcy looked down at herself, only to discover that she was invisible. She wondered if anyone would hear her, if she spoke— but better not to test that.

Fake-Darcy reached for Jane’s hand, clasping it in hers. Then she threw Jane over her shoulder in a move that the real Darcy was pretty impressed by— was that something that _she_ could do, or was that skill exclusive to the fake?

The fight devolved from there, with punches and slaps on both Jane’s and fake-Darcy’s sides. All the while, they moved closer and closer to the cliff. 

Darcy couldn’t help herself— she moved closer to Jane, just in case. She wasn’t sure what exactly Jane was planning, or if that even was the real Jane, but she wasn’t about to let her best friend die.

Not if she could help it.

Jane gave fake-Darcy one last push, and the fake went careening off the cliff. Jane herself lay on the ground, panting.

Jane looked at Darcy, even though Darcy knew she was still invisible. Jane turned her hand over and opened her fist. There, in the palm of her hand, was an orange stone— the soul stone.

“It’s yours,” Jane said.

“I didn’t even— you’re the reason we got it,” Darcy protested.

“It belongs to neither of you,” the guide said, its voice thunderous. “You cannot cheat for the soul stone.”

The ground began to shake, and Darcy had no doubt that the guide— or maybe the very planet itself— was trying to stop them from leaving with the stone.

“Take it!” Jane thrust the orange stone at Darcy. “I can’t hold on to both of them!”

It was that which finally made Darcy take the stone from Jane’s hands. She pressed it into the final bracelet, waiting in her pocket, and slipped it onto her wrist.

Jane was already glowing with red energy, clearly trying to do _something_ to stop the quake, but she was pale and trembling with exertion. Darcy, on the other hand, didn’t know how to use the stone’s energy. She wasn’t even entirely sure what the soul stone did. 

When she looked at the guide again, she felt— something. 

It was _wrong_ , somehow. Like the time she had mixed a can of Redbull with a shot of espresso and a shot of vodka: it wasn’t meant to exist in this world.

As soon as she thought that, orange light began to emanate from her. She focused on the guide, as much as she could, and though it remained cloaked, the stone seemed to show her its face clearly.

It was mask-like and horrifying. It was an image Darcy had seen in both history books and cartoons.

It was Red Skull, the founder of Hydra. How was he here? No, that didn’t matter. If he was the one trying to bring this place down, then she had to stop him.

As she thought that, he froze.

The ground stopped shaking.

Darcy could feel the soul stone’s power, whatever it was doing, pulling at her. She wasn’t even sure how she had managed _this_ ; she didn’t think she could keep doing it for very long.

Instead, she grabbed Jane’s hand and started running, pulling her along. “We need to go, _now_!”

The two of them ran for a seemingly endless distance. The whole time, Darcy was certain that the Red Skull was going to appear in front of them again— that he was going to kill them both for trying to trick him and steal the stone.

But she could feel whatever she had done to him still holding— still slowly draining energy from her— as she and Jane finally reached the safety of their spaceship. As they left orbit, she finally released it, and the orange stone on her bracelet ceased glowing.

“So, that sucked. Let’s never do it again.” It wasn’t even very funny— certainly not compared to other things Darcy had said. Still, it broke the tension after the ordeal they’d just had, and it was enough to make both Darcy and Jane collapse into slightly hysterical laughter.

When they finally stopped laughing, Darcy turned to Jane. “Wanna go pick up your boyfriend from his home planet and tell him what badasses we are?”

Jane snort-laughed. “Of course. Although I’m still not sure if Asgard is technically classified as a planet— the All-Speak seems to have trouble with scientific terminology, though.”

“Maybe you’ll get a chance to study that more while we’re there.”

There was still work to do. Thanos was still out there somewhere. Darcy had no idea if the Hydra problem had been dealt with back on Earth, if the Avengers were still headed for a break-up, or if Asgard was still going to be destroyed. 

But for now, she had a spaceship and her best friend and a motherfucking infinity stone. 

Darcy Lewis might not be a superhero, but she sure as hell wasn’t going down without a fight.


End file.
